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Robert Bierenbaum, a former Las Vegas plastic surgeon accused of killing his first wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum, heads for New York State Supreme Court accompanied by his current wife, Janet. AP Photo

Tuesday, October 03, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Former LV surgeon's N.Y. murder trial starts

NEW YORK -- The murder trial of former Las Vegas plastic surgeon Robert Bierenbaum opened Monday as prosecutors outlined how a "short unhappy marriage" ended in death 15 years ago.

Bierenbaum's attorney said the case against his client is no more than "a good theory." While the doctor and his wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum, had a rocky relationship, he was not responsible for her disappearance, the defense said.

Conflicting theories of what happened to Katz-Bierenbaum will be spun before a jury in the coming weeks in New York State Supreme Court. Robert Bierenbaum is charged with second-degree murder, carrying a penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

Both sides told jurors to be prepared to hear circumstantial evidence because no body has been found, nor has a weapon been discovered. There was no blood evidence nor witnesses to a crime, they said.

As the trial opened, Robert Bierenbaum, now 45 and remarried, sat silently at the defense table as Assistant District Attorney Steven Saracco described him as controlling, a man who on one occasion choked his young wife to the point of unconsciousness when he caught her smoking a cigarette.

Saracco said the Bierenbaums had an explosive argument in their Upper East Side Manhattan apartment on the morning she disappeared, July 7, 1985. Saracco said Katz-Bierenbaum, 29, had had enough of their three-year marriage. She was having an affair with another man and intended to tell her husband of her plans to leave him that very weekend.

"He saw his control evaporating," said Saracco. He argued that Bierenbaum killed his wife, stuffed her into a duffel bag, sneaked it into his father's Cadillac, drove it to a New Jersey airport, rented a private plane, flew it out over the Atlantic Ocean, and dumped her body into the cold, dark water, "where it remains to this day."

Saracco told jurors that Katz-Bierenbaum was not a woman preparing to run away.

"It was her intention to leave her husband," said Saracco. "It was not her intention to drop off the face of the Earth."

Defense attorney David L. Lewis agreed with two of the prosecution's statements: the Bierenbaums had a rocky marriage, and that, in all likelihood, at some point on July 7, 1985, Katz-Bierenbaum died.

But, Lewis said, the defense will show that she left the apartment that fateful morning. He said she was seen at a nearby bagel shop that afternoon by Joel Davis, a witness who recognized the woman whose picture police showed him during a months-long search.

"So, what happened?" Lewis asked. "We will learn that Joel Davis saw her. Once he sees her alive, the theory washes away."

Lewis told jurors that Katz-Bierenbaum had a "dark side" of drug use and mental instability. Attempting to counter the accusation that Robert Bierenbaum was a control freak, Lewis said, it was Katz-Bierenbaum who vetoed a visit to some of his friends a weekend before she died. He said she cheated on her husband with two different men, both of whom are expected to testify at the trial.

"So who had control?" Lewis said.

That was the side of Katz-Bierenbaum the doctor related to friends in Las Vegas, the city where he planned to make a fresh start, Lewis said. Bierenbaum moved to Las Vegas in 1989, and lived there until 1996, when he moved to Minot, N.D.

The trial's opening day included testimony from two prosecution witnesses.

The first was Hillard Wiese, 53, Katz-Bierenbaum's cousin who received a call from the woman a day after the choking incident in fall 1983.

"She sounded extremely upset," said Wiese, an attorney. He said she indicated it was not the first time her husband had choked her, but it was the first time she lost consciousness. During the 10-minute conversation, Wiese said, Katz-Bierenbaum asked him about her legal rights to personal property, and that he told her to leave immediately, which she did.

Also testifying was Virgilio Dalsass, who at the time of Katz-Bierenbaum's disappearance was a precinct detective assigned to the case. Dalsass' testimony related to Robert Bierenbaum's level of cooperation during the initial investigation of his wife's disappearance.

Within a week of the investigation, Dalsass testified, Bierenbaum had hired an attorney and did not respond to calls asking him for information on his wife.

The evening after she disappeared, he said, Bierenbaum arrived in person to make a report. During initial questioning, he did not mention an argument the two reportedly had, nor did he tell police about the plane he rented that day. During subsequent conversations, Bierenbaum did not offer helpful information, such as phone numbers or a detailed description of what the couple did the weekend the woman disappeared, Dalsass said.

On cross-examination, Dalsass recalled that his questions to Bierenbaum regarding the morning of July 7 indicated the couple did, in fact, argue, and that the doctor told him he assumed she was going to Central Park to get some sun.